


turns out california is more than just a state of mind

by everythinghappensforareason17



Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: 1984
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Backstory, Bisexual Male Character, Bisexuality, Character Study, Don't copy to another site, Drug Addiction, Eating Disorders, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, First Time, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hopeful Ending, Hurt No Comfort, Manipulation, Multi, Murderers, Or little comfort, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Alternating, Past Sexual Abuse, Physical Abuse, Polyamory, Pre-Canon, Recreational Drug Use, Religion, Threesome - F/F/M, Triggers, Voyeurism, body issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:20:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22290214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everythinghappensforareason17/pseuds/everythinghappensforareason17
Summary: Brooke starts it all...
Relationships: Donna Chambers & Brooke Thompson, Montana Duke/Brooke Thompson, Montana Duke/Xavier Plympton, Montana Duke/Xavier Plympton/Brooke Thompson, Xavier Plympton/Brooke Thompson
Comments: 14
Kudos: 16





	1. Brooke (I)

**Author's Note:**

> _  
>  **Oh, dear god, here it is! My labor of love! It took me months to even get this far to the point to post it.**   
>  _
> 
> _  
> **It started as a way to give backstory to my three favs of 1984...and grew exponentially from there. This story has taken on a life of it's own and I'm happy it has. It's one of my pride and joys...and has challenged me as an author and writer from day one.**  
> _
> 
> _  
> **I hope y'all like it and just know you're in for a roller coaster ride of epic emotional proportions lol! Trust me, I even tested myself a few times!**  
> _
> 
> _  
> **And just another quick note, I divided each of the three title characters of this ship into two parts to each chapter just so I can keep my sanity....because it's super long yooo**  
> _
> 
>   
> _  
> **So enjoy being depressed...and hopefully a little bittersweet...for nearly 5k+ words.**  
> _
> 
> _**  
> [Read This! I give credit for my inspirations for this fic in this post!](https://everythinghappens-love.tumblr.com/post/188689955944/well-soooomy-bravtana-brooke-x-xavier-x-montana)  
>  **_

**Banner by Lobo_Steele**

**_And as I still walk on_ **

**_I think of the things we've done_ **

  
  


_Brooke starts it all._

* * *

**1966**

_Brooke's never been very remarkable...not even in her birth. It had been an easy childbirth all things considered...no fuss made or complications arose. Her weight average for a newborn baby, her soft hair and eyes commonplace…she'd even cried what was considered a 'normal' amount to signal her life like most do._

_Not even the death of her twin sister had been made a big deal of...because where Brooke had wept, swaddled in her pink hospital issued blanket...her twin simply hadn’t in hers. She was stillborn._

_._

_._

_._

_._

_Nobody in the hospital room but Brooke Amber Thompson had showed any emotion over the loss of her sister._

_They’d buried her two days later in the Florida rain...passively giving her the name Monica to engrave on her tombstone... and she was never mentioned again in the Thompson household except in passing, lost forever to time._

**_._ **

**_._ **

**_._ **

**_._ **

_But Monica’s memory lingered, following Brooke throughout her life._

_She would always be able to tell the days where her father could barely look at her without thinking of the daughter he’d lost... the one that could have been identical to the young girl standing meekly in front of him...and on those days, she'd say a silent goodbye as he walked away, locking himself up in the basement to tinker around with one of his projects...and Brooke would never take those days personally._

_She respected him. He was a good man...a loving father...and the least she could offer him in turn on those days was to give him space...and find a way to fill the void her father left in her on the pages of her fairy tale books and in the burly, soft-spoken knight in shining armor that reminded her so much of sweet father that she sorely missed the company of._

**_(Her favorite fairy tale of them all had always been 'the Little Mermaid'._ **

**_A timid, but passionately beautiful mermaid finding the strength to break away from the chains of her oppressive parentage and endure the excruciating pain to live her life on earth with a handsome and loving prince, forever doing anything to make him happy despite everything... before ascending for all eternity to the heavens…_ **

**_It warmed something ominous buried within her. It fueled her to be good, complacent..to never rock the boat. She secretly let it give her life a purpose, dulling that cold darkness that she wouldn't be able to put a name to until a bus of child had screamed at the bloodbath seeping into the ground at her feet…_ **

**_But it also deeply saddened her. It's all she's ever let herself do...suffer through the agonizing pain and she always did so to make someone happy._ **

**_Her absent father, who only saw the daughter he couldn't have. Her demeaning mother, who never had any problems letting her know Brooke had caused her great pain. Her abusive boyfriend…_ **

**_She always paid the pence for their crimes. Forever their born again scapegoat. She became the little mermaid… a weak hearted and lost, luminous spirit roaming the bottom of the ocean...doing good deeds to reclaim her immortal soul._ **

**_And the very moment she'd find the courage to break free--to finally drive that knife through the heart of the handsome young prince--Joey would smile so brightly at her and her heart filled with love for him again...or her father would invite her down into the basement and show her the inner works of one of his new projects…_ **

**_And some times, Brooke wondered...if she stayed with Joey for so long, through all of his controlling behavior and the mounting number of hidden black eyes and festering insecurities...was because her father lavished her attention whenever Joey was around. He was the son that her dad had always wanted...and Brooke was the one who’d brought him the gift...and had held onto it for just to have his love…)_ **

_Because even then, Brooke understood. She had brought along with death and loneliness into their world with her birth...marking her as its dark angel._

_She’d took her siblings life--_ **_and her father and mother’s time and love_ ** _\-- away with her existence...and she would later take away Sam Duke’s from his sister._

_It was her punishment to never be able to be loved...and she guessed in retrospect, it also fits that Joey would be the one to spread it._

_He was the devil in disguise afterall._

* * *

**1979**

_Brooke feels like screaming, desperately wanting to bang her head against the wooden desk in front of her...but she swallows the urge down harshly, forcing herself to also push down the wet hot tears threatening to fall down her cheeks as she stared at the first ever F striked in fire engine red across her quiz test._

_She settles for bowing her head, bunching herself up to hide away into her inner shame...to make herself as small as possible. She tucks away the offending grade in a folder._

_The teacher frowns down at her in bewildered concern, asking politely to see her after class._

_Joey openly cheers on her downfall maniacally in the background. He gloats about the big fat A+ marked across his own quiz paper. His pretty brown eyes alight with a callous sense of victory at seeing her put in her ‘place', knocked down a peg--_ **_it's a look she'd become very familiar with as the years worn on...and grew insidious as he became more physical in showing where he felt she belonged._ **

_She sinks even further into herself, hot tears silently running down her blotchy cheeks despite her internal struggle to hold them back…not to show her hand...or her emotions. The dark light in his eyes burning a deep scorch mark in her soul as he got their peers to laugh along loudly at his stupid antics, encouraging him on…_

_Because even at eight-years-old, Joey is well loved, handsome and charmingly popular...and Brooke's just the oddball know-it-all, with her head always in a book._

_Everyone_ **_hates_ ** _her...and_ **_loves_ ** _Joey...and just like with her parents, they have no qualms in letting her know it._

 _One of her classmates shouts at her that she's a selfish, evil whore--_ **_and she laughed bitterly, looking back at the small and innocent ping of hurt that surged through her veins at being called such harsh names...she didn’t know then...what real pain truly felt like...and how that insignificant ping couldn't possibly compare to how it had nearly destroyed her to hear Montana call her those very same names nearly a decade later...as she desperately tried to hold Xavier's guts in from spilling from his body_ ** _\--and Brooke takes it without a word._

_Joey cackles at the taunt, high fiving the name caller like they had made the world's greatest joke._

_And Brooke goes stiff in her chair, just burying the never ending, deep-seated humiliation in a no-man's land part of her heart...harboring the nasty words spat across the room at her like she had everything else in her life...using it now to strengthen her ever faltering resolve._

_Brooke won't let their uncalled-for words stop her from failing the next test...or any of the others that she must fail after. Not this time. She’s on a mission...she's tired of being ignored, of being hated and judged for no reason._

_She wants Joey, and everyone else in her life, to finally_ **_like_ ** _her...to take time out to_ **_see_ ** _her...even if it isn't who she truly is._

_And she’ll do whatever it takes to achieve that goal._

**_(It's the first--and only--time in her life that she let that long buried stubbornness come out to play...the only time she felt right about being openly passionate about something that didn't revolve around another person._ **

**_The only time she wanted something for herself._ **

**_She picked the wrong time to care about something in her life…)_ **

_._

_._

_._

_._

_It gets easier for her by the third failed pop quiz…to deal with their cruel jeers and taunts...that eventually just become pitying whispers. It can’t be attention seeking ...she must really be a shy and daft, wisp of a thing after all._

_Her teachers stop asking for her to stay behind after class to find out what is wrong…she shows no real concern for her failures...so why should they? She’s just quiet and mild mannered enough to let slide on by._

_And even Joey ceases openly showing his glee at her continued failures... and starts paying close attention to her as something other than competition that he must beat out at all costs…_

_Because one day after her fifth failed test, he’s leaning up against her locker, bashful... holding out a crumpled up and messily made paper rose clenched tight in his left fist...a real smile stretched across his classically handsome face as he asks if she’d like to meet him at the local DQ and study together._

_She barely hides her cautious scowl. He’s been nothing but a bully to her...but his offer... and that stunning smile of his that she'd learn later on would be her greatest--and most grievous-- weakness seemed sweet and sincere...and all just for her._

_So despite her misgivings, she reluctantly agrees to go._

**_(It's the first real mistake of her lifetime…but joey kept showing up to her locker, bearing thoughtfully pretty gifts and his heartstopping smile...and she'd always been weak to Joey's powerful presence._ **

**_He continued to ask her out...and soon he asked her to be his girl…_ **

**_And besides the considerately consistent gifts and the smiles that had become tailored just for her...there was also the alluring perk of having the label of being 'Joey's Girl' attached to who she was that she just couldn't give up..._ **

**_The day she became his...the petty rumors had stopped...opening her peers up to inviting her presence into their circles...especially when she no longer had her head buried in a book...but in joey’s strong shoulder instead._ **

**_And that sudden and blind acceptance of her was way too intoxicating to resist...as Joey's smile and confidence soon would be too._ **

**_But the big one that would lingered started...the one that she never tried to go out of her way to put a stop to... because even though she hadn't been able to face it till it was too late, it had been the one that was the absolute truth._ **

**_Yes, Brooke was Joey's girl...but she was also Joey’s doormat._ **

**_He was every bit the charming and fun popular boy she had known him to be...but only in public, where everyone saw how much he doted on her…but he was still her greatest tormentor in private._ **

**_He gave her the first black eye of many on their 8th grade dance formal...and like always, Brooke had stayed and forgave and buried the emotional pain he'd caused her deep down…_ **

**_And she went on doing everything in her power to make her prince happy. She played up the weak and dumb girlfriend long after the thrid bruise on her pale skin and the hundreth failed pop quiz…and hid the bitter resentment ever expanding inside of her soul...threatening to one day blow her away to nothing but blood and bone._ **

**_But she also slowly...and spitefully…began to secretly exceed his knowledge in the privacy of her room...and in the stashed away higher marks in her grades._ **

**_It made his put downs sting less when she knew she could think up better ones than he ever could.)_ **

* * *

**1982**

_Joey only gets an acceptance letter from the Florida State University in Tallahassee. He steadily gets rejected from the ivy leagues of his choice...and with every new rejection letter, Brooke can see his already fragile moods grow even more unhinged...darkly unpredictable..and cold._

_He punches a hole in his bedroom wall after Harvard's rejection of him._

_Brooke quietly begins to think up excuses to stop being in his presence for long periods of time, not wanting to be the next wall he decides to take his anger out on...telling no one about the fact that she got accepted to Yale to pursue her love for literature._

_She hides the scholarship paperwork in the bottom of her underwear drawer, figuring it safe...because she knows that her father or Joey would never venture into her unmentionables for fear of offending her delicate sensibilities...but she honestly_

_doesn't count on her mother deciding one day to be a nosy and caring mom...or for her to vindictively brag to Sandy Cavanaugh that Brooke got in where Joey didn't._

**_(Her mother never did like Joey Cavanaugh. No breathtaking grin of his had won over her bitter heart...and Brooke figured she always saw in Joey what no one else had until it was far too late…)_ **

_Joey punches_ **_her_ ** _when he finds out....and he ignores her existence for the rest of their junior year...so much so that she truly begins to believe that she's finally_ **_free_ ** _of him...that she has made him disgusted enough in her to_ **_finally_ ** _leave--_ **_especially when she hears from the rumor mill that he’s taking Heather Green to the Junior/Senior prom instead of his girlfriend of five years_ ** _\--and she feels like she can breathe openly for the first time since that first failed quiz all those years ago...and Brooke's just eternally grateful that she hadn't had to throw away all the years of her well-collected layers of gold plated armor to put an end to what they had._

_Brooke feels light...safe...secure in her choice to call and accept the scholarship that had been offered to her. She wants a brand new life somewhere different from her hometown. She wants to finally explore what it means to be Brooke Amber Thompson...to open up...and be somebody...instead of the nobody she allowed herself become in Joey's shadow._

_But it's all dashed...turned to ash...when Joey shows up at her window two days before their Junior prom...and three weeks after she makes the first call to Yale._

_He's rip-roaring drunk and reeks of stale beer and marijuana cigarettes. He drunkenly pulls her into his embrace and sobs and sobs, raining wet butterfly kisses across her neck as he begs for forgiveness and for her love and trust back...and proposes to her…asking if she'll be his and only his for the rest of their lives. He promises that he'll do better...be a better man just for her...only for her...if she'll agree to be his wife._

_He's missed her...and then he grins down tearfully at her...and once again, she's unable to resist the pull he has over her...allowing herself to be swept away by his rare display of vulnerability and makes another huge mistake in her life…_

_She whispers yes as she gently wipes away the tears from his chiseled cheeks._

_Brooke gives up her spot at Yale University for Joey's cheap engagement ring...and follows him to a Brownstone her father bought them as an engagement gift that's close to Florida State for them to live in after graduation._

**_(Her mother doesn't hide from the public just how much of a disappointment her only child was to her for agreeing to marry Joey Cavanaugh…_ **

**_And Brooke had made sure that her bags had been packed and ready to go way before graduation had even rolled around. Her mother wanted her gone...her father so eager about her beginning a new life with a good man, his future son-in-law. He always had a hint that Brooke hadn't been happy with the one she did live ... but despite his good intentions, her father didn't understand that Brooke just wanted to a life free from their constant indifference...even if she had to put up Joey's abuse, he at least always showed her how he felt, volatile or not._ **

**_Her mother didn’t bother to say goodbye as Joey and her father loaded up her stuff in Joey's beat up, hand-me-down Volkswagen._ **

**_And they wouldn't end up talking to each other again... until they had to bury her father six feet in the ground...in a burial plot he reserved next to his stillborn daughter, Monica--another nail in Brooke's belief that she'd always been second best-- and her mom had just simply handed over her check for the inheritance her father had left for her in his will…_ **

**_Her face barely concealing the immense disgust she felt for the taint left on her daughter's immortal soul... by Joey' own dirty, infected blood_ **

**_She asked for Brooke to just take the money and leave...to never come back to her hometown again...to forget. Brooke was no longer her daughter...or her mother. They were nobodies to each other._ **

**_And she walked away...and she never saw her mother again…_ **

**_Brooke leaves for L.A. to find Sam's sister that very night...knowing then that her mother didn't fully grasp the full scope of her request...or her fiery hate…not truly understanding that Brooke had been long dead to her before she signed her approval on the death certificate._ **

**_But Brooke had known...she would never see her mother again after the first shove of dirth had rained down on her father's coffin as real rain had Monica's nearly eighteen years before...and she felt a huge weight lift from her shoulders by that knowledge._ **

**_She was finally...truly...free for the first time in her life. She was allowed to finally be a somebody...or a nobody...in peace._ **

**_Brooke always did like knowing more than others.)_ **

* * *

**1983**

_Sam Duke is assigned to be Joey's roommate. He's going to FSU on a full basketball scholarship...before continuing generations of male tradition by enlisting into the military like his father had years before him…_

_Sam is full of charm and humour...has the kind of old Hollywood facial features that makes even the ninety-year-old campus librarians swoon, and Brooke_ **_knows_ ** _\--can tell deep down in her gut--that Sam Duke will change her life_ **_forever_ ** _._

**_(Because just like Joey, Sam had a magnetic pull that was impossible to resist…an overwhelming sense of genuinity that made her feel for the first time in her life that she was safe...secure...that she wanted to give her all into something much bigger than herself._ **

**_And--_ **

**_She witnessed Joey fall hard and fast into Sam's own brand of charisma from day one..._ **

**_Joey had never dealt well with_** _special_ ** _, with being overshadowed by the new or_** **_unknown_** _..._ ** _but it's clear from the first handshake--_** _and the unmistakable blush that she seen color Joey's pale cheeks when their skin brushes against another when they broke contact...and goes even darker when Sam threw a harmless flirty wink Brooke's way--_ ** _that Joey will never once see Sam's classic good-looks or the unconventional prowess he seemed to possess as a threat to his very own…_**

 **_Joey will never feel the need to destroy or control Sam as he had Brooke…_ **

**_Sam's Joey's equal...someone worthy of the best parts of him. Entitled to his vulnerability and all of his insecurities...the deep-rooted uncertainties that she had worked to the bone to know that Joey held close to his heart...those dark parts of himself that he desperately tried to hide from the world behind a small town, wholesome boy persona...and those flashes of a semi-charming arrogant confidence._ **

**_And she guessed in retrospect, Montana hadn't gotten it entirely wrong. Brooke may have_ ** _never_ **_slept with Sam--_ ** _she had promised Joey her virginity a long time ago and she was far too loyal, much too fond of her childhood sweetheart to ever go back on her word_ **_\--but God, she wished she had for what she had caused by allowing her heart to be open to loving another man...and later by letting Sam walk through her front door on the night before her wedding to grieve on lost love._ **

**_Brooke had been incredibly selfish by permitting herself to covet Joey's desires as well as her own...by letting her own neediness to feel something that was hers to grow wild and out of control. Her desire to have something meaningful to share and be a part of, had damned Sam to hell...and she needed to burn for that sin._ **

**_She put Sam Duke six feet in the ground--_ ** _where she'd later put Montana Duke too_ **_\--because as it turned out, Joey did have a weakness that would lead him to his own damnation._ **

**_She just never expected that he'd bring her...or Sam...down with him.)_ **

.

.

.

.

**_(But apparently Sam had known._ **

**_He told her as much on the night before her wedding._ **

**_Drunk and high off cocaine--_ ** _and smelling of a Joey's cheap cologne_ **_\--Sam had tearfully confided in her that he'd always known Joey would end up being the death of him._ **

**_He'd even had shown her the test results to prove it.)_ **

_._

_._

_._

_._

_Soon after Joey meets Sam, he gets bored of her. The novelty of staking a claim and getting to have her all to himself, quickly wears off for him...especially since he's got a new shiny toy to play with now--_ **_she's not blind...or stupid... to the violently purple hickeys that Sam begins sporting about a month after they begin rooming together_ ** _\--and Brooke waits for it…for that bitter sense of betrayal or that twinge of jealousy._

 _She searches deep for that familiar sting of male abandonment that always threatens to overtake and swallow her whole, to break her down to the bone...but it_ **_never_ ** _comes._

_She just feels an immense sense of relief, like_

_She can finally breathe with his lingering presence gone from her space...and it hurts her heart...especially since she's wrapped her entire_ **_existence_ ** _around seeking out Joey’s approval and love, but Brooke doesn't miss his undivided attention._

_Not at all._

_._

_._

_._

_._

**_(Because a year later in the mess hall of Camp Redwood, with the wood floor against her naked back, her heart thumping wildly against her chest...and the oddly unpleasant lingering of Ray's cold fingers caressing her skin...pawing at her breasts…_ **

**_She realizes that she's wasted her most of her youth tied to Joey Cavanaugh's idea of perfection...revolved her own wants and needs around his own...so that he'd be the one person who'd never leave her…and that she's doing it again with Ray's own needs for comfort and want for her body._ **

**_She hates herself for it...for her greed for affection...her neediness for love. It had pushed Xavier away...and made Montana cold toward her..._ **

**_Brooke should know by now that it never worked…to become what everyone else wanted. It didn't matter...they always leave her in the end._ **

**_And as it turned out, Ray had already been long gone before she had ever gotten her hands on him.)_ **

_._

_._

_._

_._

_Sam begins leaving her mixtapes of what he's always complaining is that crappy and newage pop, on her front porch soon after she sees the first hickey bloom purple against his skin... along with a small note and a single, but real red rose...and she guesses that Joey must have told him the story of how they got together and that leaving them behind along with the tapes is Sam's own way of provoking Joey's warth for fun or sexual thrills ...or maybe to simply to mock her with..._

_But Brooke just throws them out, but slowly hoards the red roses on her living room coffee table until they begin to build into a bouquet that Joey always scowls at when he decides to come home from campus to see her...but he says nothing._

_._

_._

_._

_._

_The first dozen notes he leaves with the roses and mixtapes is a simple sorry...for what she doesn't have a clue. For carrying on an affair with her finance? For stealing Joey's heart and affections...for somehow stealing her own without a real word exchanged between them?_

_She wants to tell him that he needn't be...but like Joey's distaste for the roses, she keeps quiet on the matter. It's never done her well to show her cards…_

_._

_._

_._

_._

_The second dozen always comment on how her hair flowed pretty in the evening breeze that day or how nice she looks in the sundress or skirt or some other clothing he saw her in and those notes always make her blush…_

_She begins hiding them in the same place she hid her acceptance letter to Yale almost a year ago...in the one place she knows Joey will never look for them._

_._

_._

_._

_._

_The next few are sloppy written lyrics to some Billy Idol song...or The Clash...or David Bowie._

_His favorites._

_And Brooke realizes that he is giving her a piece of him...a look into his very heart and soul._

_She cherishes them._

**_(Even after his death... when Xavier asked, "Why do you keep them?" late one night as they'd watched the aerobic studio for Montana to appear at her car and drive home._ **

**_She had shrugged. "He was the first man to ever love me. I figured they were worth keeping...and maybe showing Montana someday.")_ **

_Her favorite line from one of the notes is:_ **_What set you free and brought you to be me babe?_ **

_And she boldly says as much to him the next time Joey leaves them alone...and he just smiles at her and says it's his favorite line too._

**_(And Joey waited for the right moment to break._ **

**_And Brooke never saw it coming...never saw the chaotic storm brewing inside of her childhood sweetheart…becoming more and more restless...and angry--_ ** _like a caged animal, trying to restrain itself from its violent nature_ **_\--with every new rose that continued to accumulate on her coffee table...and every new smile that graced her face that he hadn't put there._ **

**_Hadn't noticed every narrowing of the eyes as he silently watched her and Sam secretly orbited closer to each other with every new unlistened mixtape and stowed away love notes…_ **

**_She hadn't seen the gigantic swell of his mad jealously boiling underneath his skin...waiting to reach its boiling point and explode._ **

**_She hadn't seen it coming...)_ **

_._

_._

_._

_._

_Joey continues to not bring up the subject of the red roses…until one day her doorbell rings late on a Friday night and she sees Joey and Sam are on the side of the door, smiling brightly at her, half drunk...a bottle of Merlot nearly empty between them and dangling from Joey's fingers...with a new mixtape and a single red rose in Sam's._

_Joey holds the bottle out to her. "We wanted to see you…" he says charmingly in his partly drunken haze...smiling that damn smile that has always somehow gotten her in trouble since she was thirteen._

_She's never been able to resist him when he's like this. Cool, friendly and extraordinarily handsome...and sweet just to her._

_Sam chuckles. "Now I can finally make you listen to my mixtape, Thompson."_

_Brooke heart stops for a moment...and she takes a quick glance at Joey. "Sam…" she warns._

_But Joey waves her off._

_"It was my idea, Brooke." he speaks up, still collectively loose and cool in demeanor...and smiling that pretty smile at her. "Sam seems to love making you those tapes...and giving you those_ **_roses_ ** _. So I figured this way we could all enjoy it together."_

_Sam slumps into his shoulder, nudging the Merlot--and mixtape--closer to her...and Brooke smiles back at him, surprised at Joey's thoughtfulness...and how cute they both look together._

_She takes the bottle from his grip._

_._

_._

_._

_._

**_(Because it wouldn't...not really._ **

**_Not until the day of her wedding when Joey pointed a loaded gun at Sam's head…and pulled the trigger.)_ **

_._

_._

_._

_._

_Joey grumbles, rubbing his temples as the stereo blares_ **_Girls Just Wanna Have Fun_ ** _._

_Brooke just giggles, singing badly along to Cyndi Lauper's magical lyrics...dancing around the living room in her pajamas, her moments loose and slow from the alcohol. Her mousy hair whipping around wildly as she sways to the beat._

_Sam laughs, snapping his fingers to the sound of the music...pride written all over his face for her love of his music selections._

_And Joey frowns at their antics, his index finger tapping a slow rhythmic tempo against the empty wine bottle. His left eye subtly twitching as his other hand balls into a fist...a clear warning sign that he's on the very edge, almost at peak..._

_But she just ignores it. It doesn't matter...not when Sam is blatantly encouraging her bad behavior by getting up and dancing along with her...and their closeness so excellently digs under Joey's skin._

_She's happy... mellow...and free. She wants to enjoy it..._

**_(Like she had soon found that she quite enjoyed having her solitude…her privacy from Joey's judgemental eye...a sliver of freedom from the abuse she'd grown accustomed to from him._ **

**_She liked not having to hide her intelligence behind a mask of stupidity and meekness...loved being able to fully express peeks of her interests openly...like leaving small stacks of her favorite classic novels--_ ** _To Kill A Mockingbird had become one of her favorites to read_ **_\--laying by the windowsill…_ **

**_She liked being alone. She loved life without Joey Cavanaugh in it.)_ **

_Sam hip checks her to get her attention and she turns to him, grinning lazily…and he presses his lips against hers in a soft kiss...and her heart skips a beat as he breaks away and smiles down beautifully at her...and she nearly trips over her own feet._

_He laughs at her again, catching and hugging her close before she can nearly topple over._

_And Joey jumps off the couch to shuts off the music, glowering at them, his eyes slits of blazing blue fire._

_Sam moves away from her, caught out and embarrassed. "Joe…" he starts._

_But Joey cuts him off. "We're leaving." He grits out, nearly taking her front door off its hinges when he pulls it open._ **_"Now!"_ ** _He shouts._

_And Sam flinches at his tone, not saying a word as he does what he's told. He doesn't even look at her as he walks away._

_Joey slams the door behind them...and leaves Brooke dazed and confused about what just happened._

.

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_Brooke doesn't hear from either of them for nearly a week._

_._

_._

_._

_._

_The last note Sam leaves her, the one that gets her to admit that she may love Sam Duke just a little bit, is an employment form for her to apply to work at the campus library._

**_("It will get you away from Joey...and I know you love books." Sam told her a few days after Joey's outburst...his right eye black and blue and swollen shut, his whole aura somber and grim._ **

**_He held her hand close to his heart...and squeezed it tightly to him. "I just want you to be happy…and free from him. I'm stuck to him, Brooke…now and forever...but you don't have to be."_ **

**_She took her hand away…not knowing how to break it to him. She's been just as stuck to Joey Cavanaugh from the first time she saw him smile at her as Sam has ever been._ **

**_"Goodbye, Sam.")_ **

_._

_._

_._

_._

**_("You're mine, Brooke…" Joey said, his face sweaty, his eyes wild and crazy. She felt a scream for Sam build in her throat. The dam had finally broke...and there was no telling what he might do. "And I'm sorry I forgot that for a while…"_ **

**_He cocked the gun._ **

**_"Brooke…" Sam whispered, reaching out for her. His voice shaky, his whole body quivering._ **

**_She'd never seen him so afraid...not even the night before her wedding as they cried and he told her his fears about following his family's tradition and going into the army…of the grim possibility of having to fight a war...of having to leave his sister all alone in the world to deal with their cruel mother._ **

**_He didn't want to die… to leave his sister with no one who truly loved her. He wanted to keep his promise to his father to always look after her... because, he laughed wetly, she always seemed to have the uncanny ability to get herself into trouble._ **

**_He didn't want to leave Brooke alone without him...couldn't stand to stomach her fate as Joey's eternal victim._ **

**_He wanted to save her...wanted to help his sister…for all three of them to rescue each other._ **

**_He wanted to live._ **

**_But most of all, Sam Duke didn't want to be another of Joey's victims._ **

**_"I lo--"_ **

**_BOOM!_ **

**_She screamed._ **

**_"Brooke!" her father yelled._ **

**_BOOM!_ **

**_She cried._ **

**_"Look what I did for you...look what you made me do! This is your fault, you remember that!"_ **

**_BOOM!_ **

**_She became tainted...as Joey's last victim.)_ **

_._

_._

_._

_._

_She sees Joey a few hours before her last note from Sam._

_"I talked to your Dad...and he said he'd be ready to have the wedding in a month. We're going home, Brooke."_

_And Brooke feels numb. Her fate sealed. She's going to be Mrs. Joey Cavanaugh._

_She nods her agreement...and goes to see Sam...to say goodbye._

* * *

**_And I feel a pain  
A wishin' you were here by me_ **

_TBC..._

  
  



	2. Brooke (II)

_**Remember not to get too close to stars** _

* * *

**1983**

_Brooke searches, high and low...day and night...for any of Sam's living relatives._

_For the mother he loathes with every fiber of his being--_ **_for being the catalyst to the dangerously low plummet in self-esteem...and the beginning of the self-destruction of his baby sister_ ** _._

 _For the father who took off with a whispered 'look after your sister' and never returned--_ ** _and_** **_that Sam would forever seek out in older men...curising the gay bars and nightclubs...or in the rough late night tyrsts with his closeted, equally promiscuous college roommate._**

 _Or for his beloved sister, Montana Duke...the only real love of his life, the one person he adored... and who knew and adored him back--_ **_the same sisters that he had mourned the night on the eve of her wedding as he'd tearfully confided in her about his HIV status...and that it had been Joey who'd given it to him._ **

_Brooke looks non-stop, tires herself out with all her efforts... doesn't mind finally having an all consuming task that almost helps keep the night terrors at bay._

**_(She often dreams of her wedding day:_ **

**_Boom!_ **

**_Screams. Screams everywhere._ **

**_"I don't believe you…" Joey whispers...before blowing off the back of his head._ **

**_And then there's blood all over...his blood...like a stain bleed into the fabric of her entire being...into the purity of her white wedding dress. She'll never be wanted by anyone again... forever marked as Joey Campbell Cavanaugh's._ **

**_Forever his...and Sam's.)_ **

_She becomes frantic in her need for any tangible link to Sam…for any livingly real proof of the only real friend she ever had--_ **_who had loved her as much as she had loved him_ ** _\--would not be forgotten, wasted away in time...like her sister had been_ **_..._ ** _because of joey's actions and his need to keep Brooke in her place...and make sure his secret would go to the grave…_

**_(He must have known what Sam revealed to her that night, he had to of…_ **

**_There was no other explanation for what he'd done…_ **

**_His inability to stand that Brooke could truly know him as he had never taken the time to know her had made him do the unthinkable… he'd made sure that one person who did had tasted lead.)_ **

_There had to be someone she could make amends to...for the part she caused in her only friend's death._

_Because while she had buried her father--_ **_and lost a sister, who'd marked her for tragedy...and said goodbye to a mother_ ** _,_ **_who had disowned her long before the bloody wedding_ ** _\--she also knows that Montana Duke had buried a sibling because of her...like her parents had buried Monica because somehow she had just been made stronger…_

 _And for_ **_that_ ** _reason, Montana's loss feels much bigger than her own…because Sam Duke had been a gift to the world... and Joey had taken him away from it...and from the one person besides herself who had needed him the most._

**_(And she found it...her link...on a rainy day much like the one they had when her parents had buried Monica._ **

**_It's in Los Angeles. Twenty-three years old...and apparently just as charismatic and beautiful as Sam had ever been._ **

**_And so far away...so far away from her runaway father, cruel mother, and dead brother…and Brooke felt compelled to go and follow her example._ **

**_And so with her mother's hateful words ringing in her ears--_ ** _much like the jeers of her peers had when she failed test after test for Joey's love_ **_\--she'd packed a suitcase full of her clothes...and Sam's love notes--_ ** _as well as the unfilled out application that had sealed Sam's...and hers she guessed...fates together_ **_\--and headed out to California in Joey's old Volkswagen.)_ **

* * *

**_(It's a long drive...tiresome...and she often questions why she's traveling for 41 hours and 2,700 miles to see someone who she doesn't know and doesn't know her._ **

**_But then she'll pull over into a rest stop and lay her head down on a suitcase in the backseat… and see Sam's face behind her eyelids, smiling and giddy as they danced like fools around the Brownstone's living room--_ ** _and how her father had been forced to sell what she felt had started to become_ **_her_ ** _apartment, to pay for the impromptu wedding Joey had insisted on._

 ** _Or_** **_how_** **_she'd felt waking up every morning to a new mixtape, a rose, and Sam's continuous gestures of love filling her heart--_** _and how it had felt like a gaping hole in her soul when she'd been forced to live without it...until Joey had broken down and invited Sam to be his best man...and Sam had answered...showing up to her rehearsal dinner, his hair longer than she remembered it being...heavy bags under his eyes, but still so very handsome and smiling...just for them._

**_Or how his tears had felt on her bare shoulder as he cried with her a few nights later, forlorn as he begged for forgiveness for having to leave her and Montana behind...and to her for a final favor--_ **

_"Promise me, Brooke...promise that you'll find my sister." He whispered, breaking their hug as tears glistened on his cheeks, his eyes wide and staring at her with sad adoration._

_She thought he never looked more beautiful._

_"Sam…" She started but he cut her off._

_"You have to promise me that you'll break away from Joe…"_

_She shook her head at that. "It's not that simple...you of all people know that…"_

_He gripped her tighter to him._

_"Montana will help you…she's a firecracker...feisty... takes no shit. She won't let you get swept up in Joey's bullshit. She'll save you...like she had tried to with me…"_

_"Why couldn't she?"_

_"I couldn't leave you…" He glanced at her, still dejected and sad...but there was also a small renewal...a dim twinkle in his eyes...of love and nostalgia as he continued to rave on about his sister._

_"Oh, you'll love her, Brooke… and I know that she already loves you! I've told her so much about you...showed her a picture even! She's dying to meet you...and you can...just come away with me."_

_She pulled away from his embrace, tears in her own eyes now._

_"We'll save each other...we'll be a family...you, me, and Montana. I can survive anything as long as I have my two best friends with me! Please, Brooke, I'm begging you...come away with me!"_

_She said no, the thought of leaving Joey behind breaking her heart into a million pieces. She could never abandon him. He had been her only family for so long._

_"_ **_I_ ** _can't leave Joey alone in the world anymore than you can leave Montana." She said, tucking a small strand of her hair behind her ear, nervous...afraid he'll leave her again because of her weakness for Joey, especially since he's been free of Joey's hold for months now._

_Sam ran his fingers through his already messy hair...and then sighed, resigned._

_"Then I guess we're going to have to both come to you then. Because I can't leave you alone either, Brooke...not again. I wouldn't survive it...you're my family now too."_

_She smiled and kissed his cheek...sealing his fate._

**_And that mistake...her_ ** _inability_ **_to abandon Joey... is what propels her forward with her mission...to fulfill her promise...to make Sam proud of her. To keep one last link to the first man she ever really loved alive...and start a new family._ **

**_It's what gets her up in the morning. It's her cup of coffee...a drug that courses through her veins. It makes her put the key into the ignition and start the long drive toward her destiny._ **

**_It's what brings her one step closer to Montana Duke...and to whatever new page in her life that awaited her.)_ **

* * *

_Brooke seeks out the opportunity to begin watching Montana as soon as she drives into LA._

_It isn't hard to find out where Miss Duke frequents once she gets there...not anymore...not when Montana's the kind of girl that makes it her goal to stand out in life._

_And Brooke sticks close to the shadows...even though she doesn't know why she bothers to. She's never been anything but truly invisible to the natural beauties of the world._

_But she just feels safest hiding in the darkness of night...feeling like the daylight will reveal her to be somehow reading a dirty magazine in public...or doing something that's best done to the privacy of her own fantasies._

_So she watches Montana at night…from the safety of Joey's Volkswagen... or from the back booth of a seedy bar she seems to like to chase blow, fine liquor and men in...or from the glass divide of window panes of the aerobics studio; both the only true thing that separates them from meeting one another other._

_She sees through the glass the copious amount of coke Montana snorts up her nose to get her through the night...sees the rough trysts that Montana partakes in when the midnight classes are over...in the locker rooms...or against the glass of the studio... or in the back alleys of the bar..._

**_(She'd once watched from the obscure darkness of the alleyway for far too long... a deep, aching throb beginning in her core as she stared transfixed at Montana's face as she climaxed, the unknown man continuing to pound into her._ **

**_And she felt it, saw it long before Montana tried to kill her nearly a year later...that deep and sick snap connection inside her soul...that subtle, but distinctive deadness in her eyes that she notices as her own too, when Montana just laughed as the man finished…_ **

**_Brooke knew of Montana's immense, palpable darkness long before they had met...and Montana introduced herself in that locker room--_ ** _where she'd watched her fuck a hundred and one men and women._

**_She was broken…_ **

**_And Brooke had wanted to fix her.)_ **

_._

_._

_._

_._

**_(And in the end, she guessed she had. She should have known that death was better than nothingness_ ** _.)_

* * *

_And life goes on like that for such a long time…_

_Brooke in the shadows, watching...waiting._

_And with Montana out there, living...getting drunk… causing bar fights...doing drugs and aerobics...chasing men and women...and laughing…just laughing the night away._

_._

_._

_._

_._

_And then she meets Xavier._

* * *

_**They're never gonna give you love like ours** _

_TBC..._

**Author's Note:**

> _  
>  [The Song thay inspired the title of this fic!](https://open.spotify.com/track/7MtVPRGtZl6rPjMfLoI3Lh?si=h9vUXwWhRZmheuS3aMvGTw)   
>  _
> 
> _All mistakes are mine! This is u'beta-ed...and I'll fix them at some point._


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